Space Cowboy
by crimson-blood-kiss
Summary: They told me he was dead. That he was never coming back, it started to sound like a broken record. I saw his corpse and yet I still refused to believe them. So why the hell do I see him lying in my bed with nothing but a towel...
1. Life without my tiger stripped cat

Cowboy Bebop FayeXSpike Rated M for future Lemons

They told me he was dead. That he was never coming back; it started to sound like a broken record. I saw his corpse and yet I still refused to believe them. A lie. That's what they were telling me. Life went on without him, like he was never here. The only thing proving that wrong was his old syndicate headquarters were in ruins. When he decided to do something he went all out. He kept his promise; he followed his fallen angel to hell dragging that bastard Vicious with him in the end. The bebop seemed eerie without him, there was an immense void.

So why the hell do I see him lying in my bed with nothing but a towel…

Rewind…..

Ever since he decided to play the righteous cowboy off to revenge his fallen angel, everything has changed. Jet doesn't talk much these days, Ed's not bouncing off the walls like usual. Ein just lays there on the floor with his ears flat against his head. Me, well I'm just a mess. I haven't eaten or slept right, since they told me he was dead.

In a way I knew. I just knew if he walked out, he never come back, never again. Yet at the same time I prayed, hoped he would return and say something like "it's over" or "I no longer have a past." Nothing, nothing is what happened. Well, nothing is not exactly what happened: he died after all.

I keep replaying what he said to me, the last things I would ever hear him speak.

"Look at my eyes, Faye. One of them is a fake because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I've been seeing the past in one eye and the present in the other. So, I thought I could only see patches of reality, never the whole picture. I felt like I was watching a dream I could never wake up from. Before I knew it, the dream was all over."

I asked if he was "going to just throw away his life for nothing."

His reply was "I'm not going there to die; I'm going there to find out if I'm really alive."

Those were his last words to me, his very last words.

I was going to shoot him, I really was, I thought if I shot him and stopped him, he would stay. In the end I couldn't do it, I shot the ceiling instead and watch from my peripheral his fading back as he left for good.

That night I didn't sleep I just cried, cried a million tears like the tiger stripped cat in that story. Me I was nothing, nothing of importance to him, none of us were. We were the "various people who he really didn't care for." The eerie silence that fills this ship seems to be the knowledge, the recognition that we didn't mean enough to him, not enough for him to stay at the very least.

HI the part was Faye remembering the last thing he ever said to her. The actual lines were the ones he spoke in the anime. The reference to the tiger stripped cat story is part of the last episode as well.


	2. Is it a Dream?

FAYE'S POV

Recap: So why the hell do I see him lying in my bed with nothing but a towel…

I stood there in the middle of the threshold, my mouth gaped open, and my eyes as big as saucers. So many things running through my head: how, when, where, why...what the hell was happening? All the while Spike's lanky form is sprawled across my bed. His naked back and towel the only thing I can see. I wanted to scream, I stood still, listening to the silence of the ship, my deep breaths accompanying the silence, straining to hear a heartbeat...a breath, anything! I slowly brought my hands to my face, as not to disturb the air in any way and the illusion before me. I rubbed my eyes anxiously hoping to wipe away the phantom image that lay before me. I inhaled deeply and told myself it was my overactive imagination, as I exhaled, I opened my eyes.

SHIT!

HE was still THERE!

Slowly I backed out of the doorway and the door slid shut with a little whoosh. I leaned against the adjacent wall for support. It's just my imagination. He's dead. I'm just tired, a bit delusional. I need sleep. I need to breath. Breath in...and...out...

I stood there for a while, not sure what to do. Go get Jet was my first thought, but I immediately squashed that idea. He already knows I am not very stable. To go running to Jet and tell him about how spike is lying in my bed in nothing but a towel, would probably convince him that I was certifiably crazy. With a mean face he would probably yell at me to stop fucking around. Then scream "Spike is gone and he is never coming back."

Then I thought maybe if I could trick him into coming and showing him my room, and it was empty, then I would accept I had finally gone crazy and my next stop would be an asylum.

So that left me with my last idea to go in there and find out for myself: If he is real or just my imagination messing with me.

I pushed off of the only thing holding me upright. Slowly, my shaking legs made their way to my door. The door slid open, and I took a cautious step forward and passed the threshold. The door slid shut behind me, incasing the room in darkness. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the lack of light, I stood still, clueless as to what my next move should be.

1. Scream loudly

2. Run to the bed and jump on it

3. Casually walk to my bed, lay down as if nothings wrong

4. Turn around and walk out.

Every fiber in my body wanted to know if he was real. On the other hand, my brain was leaning towards number four, with the extension of banging my head against a steel wall. Number one and four were out because Jet would get involved, and as reasoned earlier that was considerably a bad idea. So that left me with two options, number two and number three. If I go with number two and my imagination is messing with me, I am going to get hurt. If it is not my imagination, and Spike is alive, then I am going to get hurt. So that left me with my last option, number three. I took a deep breath, lifted my right leg slightly and took a step forward. I exhaled, lifted my left leg and took a step. I repeated the action till I stood a foot away from the bed. As my body turned, I slowly sank down to the mattress, my heart was racing. I laid down rigidly on the bed, afraid to even breathe. I waited: nothing. I let a sigh escape my lips. I closed my eyes and turned on to my side, as I spoke in a sad whisper "It was my imagination after all."

Suddenly I felt hot air on the back of my neck and a deep voice say, "Or was it."


End file.
